


Liberation Flight

by Aurelia_Combeferre



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Action, Adventure, Crossover, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 02:54:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5480618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aurelia_Combeferre/pseuds/Aurelia_Combeferre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Force awakens, Cosette and the young Thenardiers escape the prison colony of Kessel, unwilling to be subject anymore to the First Order's schemes. What awaits them is a galaxy full of adventure, the Resistance, and an ongoing struggle that involves more than just the Force and its ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_A/N: Here we are again, with a story long in coming. I own nothing created by Victor Hugo, George Lucas, or J.J Abrams. I am merely borrowing and mixing it up for amusement’s sake_

**LIBERATION FLIGHT**

_Chapter 1: Escape_

_There was light before Kessel_. This one fact was something Cosette could be sure of, regardless of every single day she woke up to the stifling heat and darkened tunnels of the old prison colony. It was not always easy to remember though, especially when everyone else was sure of the opposite.

“Dreaming again, Cosette?” a young but harsh voice cut through her reverie. “You’re lucky the wardens can’t read your mind.”

“They don’t do that but they have ears, Ponine,” the golden haired waif retorted as she looked up from the cables she was picking apart and into the dark, tired eyes of her friend. “Come sit by me, it’s better that way.”

The dark-haired girl looked around for a few moments before sitting next to Cosette. “You make a peep, it will be the torture chambers for us next. They almost got Gavroche today, but I found him first,” she whispered furtively.

“I heard. I saw,” Cosette remarked as she handed one end of the cable to her friend. She stuck her tongue between a gap in her front teeth as she continued stripping the coverings from the twisted and charred cables. It was painful, mind-numbing work, but far more preferable to working in the tunnels, or worse, enduring any span of time at the hands of the First Order’s correctional officers.

‘ _There was something before the First Order too,’_ Cosette thought. Now this was certain fact: before the First Order had arisen, there had been the Empire that had built and fortified this prison. Its mark was still in the featureless walls and most of all, in the deadened eyes of the prisoners who were still here for crimes no one now remembered. More importantly this Empire was still very much alive in the merciless gazes of the overseers and wardens who stood watch over every being in this prison, innocent and guilty alike.

At that moment one of these wardens suddenly looked towards the two girls and strode up to them. “You two. What are you doing?” he barked imperiously.

‘ _Don’t look up, don’t look up,’_ Cosette told herself. It never did good to make such contact. Anything, even a word or a gesture, was always considered a challenge.

Eponine never learned for some reason. “We’re picking cable, Sir,” she replied, holding up a still unstripped end.

The warden growled before seizing her arm to shake her. “Faster, girl. We don’t have all day!” he snapped before bringing the cable down against Eponine’s wrist, making her gasp and bite her lip with pain. He glared at her before pushing her down on the hard floor. “Don’t let me catch you two here again.”

‘ _You won’t,’_ Cosette thought even as she risked a glance at Eponine, who was biting her lip in an attempt not to cry. “We’ll move soon enough,” she whispered.

Eponine looked at the rising welts on her arms before grabbing the cable and swiftly ripping away a plastic sheath.. “I hate him. I hate all of them!”  

“We all do,” Cosette murmured. Yet even as these words left her lips, she could already feel a sense of unease, as if the darkness had suddenly began to gather behind them in a way she did not dare to place.

**

There was also talk of something that had torn the Empire apart, of a certain Luke Skywalker from a backward planet known as Tatooine. “Bah! What a story!” one of the older prisoners, Thenardier, had sneered when this story had been brought up. He had once been a powerfully built man, so he claimed, but nowadays he was as skinny as the cables on the landing pads of this prison.“A man with a jot of sense would not fade away---but take the Emperor’s Throne for himself!”

“Men are odd nowadays, darling,” Thenardier’s wife crooned. She cast a knowing look at her daughter, Eponine, who was pulling at some wires that had been part of a broken droid. “So are girls too.”

“Not my fault I wanted to go simming, Mama,” Eponine retorted. “I’m not picking wires all day.”

“Flying is all well and good, but leave that to those young men—those who’ll be employed by the wardens to run stuff in and out of here,” Thenardier warned. “Unless you want to be a smuggler and run the Spice Route, my girl!”

Eponine snorted. “Would be better than this. I’ll get someplace lovely.”

Her mother sighed. “Someday, there will be one for you though. And for your sister too.”

‘ _But never for me or Gavroche,’_ Cosette thought, having heard this entire exchange from where she was boiling what little water could be used for the Thenardiers’ meal. It was not usual for prisoners to serve other prisoners, but old Thenardier had been accorded a ‘special favor’ by the wardens, who now allowed him to employ anyone to see to his family’s daily needs. And of course what better person for the task than someone whose own kin had dropped her off and apparently forgotten about her?

There was light before Kessel; it had been in Cosette’s mother’s eyes. She remembered seeing as much, under a clear blue sky elsewhere in the galaxy. ‘ _You’re in my thoughts, darling. Wherever I am, you are there. You and I will know it,’_ she had said once.

Cosette had never forgotten, though she was sure that she couldn’t have been more than three years old when that had happened. That longing and knowing had never really been diminished over the past fourteen years, not even during the nights when she had cried in pain from her own injuries, or listened to her friends hold back their own grievances. Even now, as she ambled to where the two younger Thenardier children were trying to keep warm beside a heated piece of metal, she could still feel that reassuring tug in the back of her mind.   

 Azelma, the younger Thenardier girl, smiled wanly at Cosette. “It was no man. It was a Jedi,” she whispered. “That’s how the story really ends.”

“Hush!” Cosette whispered, glancing fearfully from Azelma to Gavroche curled up in their corner. Any mention of the Jedi was grounds for a visit to the torture chambers, or worse. For a moment she did not dare to say anything more, not till she was sure that no footsteps were coming into their little hovel. “Once, there were many. They were called Jedi Knights,” she said in an undertone. “They did many great things throughout the galaxy---and kept the Old Republic safe.”

Gavroche made a slashing motion with his hands, as if he was holding some sort of saber. “I heard that it would take only one of them to free _everyone_ in this prison!”

“One man against a thousand,” Azelma said, shaking her head. “Never happens. For one thing, who would come for us?”

This sobering question made Cosette sigh. Being thrown into this prison---even for a mere ‘refugee’ or ‘orphan’ like her---was just as good as being sent out into one of the black holes of the Maw. Before she could say anything, she felt something thud in her chest, as if she had been pounded from within her ribcage. ‘ _Like something broke---‘_

“Cosette? You look pale,” Gavroche asked from seemingly far off.

“I’m fine,” Cosette murmured, yet even so she could already feel that strange gnawing within her. There was nothing holding her, nothing to keep her at bay. ‘ _Mother?’_ she almost asked but suddenly the sound of running footsteps made her stand up and push her friends into a corner.

“Thenardier! Have you seen it?” a voice asked breathlessly. “A ray of light as bright as the sun, slashing across the sky!”

“What is it to you or us, Panchaud?” Thenardier growled at their neighbor. “Probably some ship just went down and crashed outside the containment---“

“There’s no smoke, no nothing!” Panchaud yelled. “That light, it headed across space. Bound for somewhere towards the Core.”

Eponine immediately slunk to a corner and pulled out a sheet of flimsi. She ran her finger along the map and winced. “So many worlds. Did you see what exact direction, Panchaud?”

“Ponine, put that map away! What if someone sees you?” Thenardier growled. “You aren’t even supposed to have that!”

“No one looks for things from a refuse heap,” Eponine reasoned as she rolled up the flimsi and put it in a pocket of her tunic. “It could be anything. Hopefully it’s not some star exploding and scattering its remains all over the galaxy.”

“Now I’ve seen a supernova, young Thenardier,” Panchaud said. “It does not do that. It’s no working of the stars, trust me.”

Cosette shivered even as she saw Azelma back into their corner while Gavroche thumbed his nose. ‘ _What could it be then?’_ she wondered. Surely the First Order, terrible as it was, could not have come up with something so powerful as that?

Yet it was only a matter of hours till the first whispers and rumors began to seep through the prison colony. They had begun as the softest of murmurings till they were loud enough to tug Cosette from her fitful slumber. “It’s a destroyer of worlds,” the Thenardier lady muttered. “We’ll be next. No one wants us here.”

“Nonsense!” Thenardier retorted. “The First Order needs a rock to put its slime on.”

“We’re not slime! At least I am not---”

“Why you----“

Suddenly Cosette felt a callused hand on her shoulder. “Ponine! What are you doing?” she whispered, turning to look at her friend, who was dressed in a sort of travelling cloak over her usual tunic.

“Wake up Zelma and Gavroche,” Eponine instructed. “We’re not sticking around for this.”

Cosette nodded as she took in the sight of the small bag in her friend’s hand, and the small square of flimsi in her pocket. “How? Where will we go?”

“Hangar 8. The guards have forgotten about that, and I bribed someone in the gates,” Eponine said. She shook her head, clearly not wanting to let on how such a bribe came about. “We have to get anywhere but here. My mother is right.”

“But your parents?”

“I’ll try. Get my brother and sister.”

Cosette lost no time in dashing to where Azelma and Gavroche were curled up in pallets on a corner. She shook Azelma and placed a hand on the younger girl’s mouth. “Get dressed. Ponine said so.”

“Again?” Azelma groaned. “If the guards catch us this time, there’ll be no getting home before they set the blasters on us---“

“Which is why we have to go. Come on!” Cosette urged before shaking Gavroche. It wasn’t the first time that Eponine had engineered an escape attempt, however each venture had failed and brought them closer and closer to the notice of the First Order wardens. The last attempt had very nearly cost them their lives. ‘ _I really hope she’s thought it through this time,’_ Cosette thought as she gathered up a few clothes, some knives, and what little food there was in the hovel, and stashed it all in a pack. All the while she could hear Eponine arguing with her parents in increasingly loud tones, till a resounding smack of a fist against flesh ended all discourse.

Cosette rushed towards Eponine, only to find her crouched on the floor and holding a hand to her cheek. “Ponine!” she whispered. “What happened?”

“If the children want to go, let them,” the mother snarled at her husband. “I will not let my daughters die here.”

“What! They’ll be shot down by the prison guards!” Thenardier snapped. “You foolish woman!”

The Thenardier woman did not say anything to this, but only glared at Cosette. “You are staying here.”

This time Eponine sprang to her feet and shoved her mother’s hand away. “She knows the way. She’s coming with us.”

‘ _I don’t----‘_ Cosette almost protested till she recalled now what her friend had meant. In all their past escape attempts, she had been the one to direct them back down the alleys where no one was looking, just to get them as far as they could go---or back home when their mission failed. ‘ _Can I do it again?’_ she wondered even as she dashed towards the doorway. She thought she heard a scuffle behind her, but there was no use in looking back, not when the way out was still open. At last she saw that Eponine, Azelma, and Gavroche had finally caught up with her. “What happened?”

“Hosnian System. I’ll explain later,” Eponine said. She swiped a hand across her eyes. “We have to go. Where can we pass?”

Cosette took a deep breath as she looked around, waiting for any lights, footsteps or any sign that someone had noticed their escape. “You said we have to be at Hangar 8?”

Eponine nodded impatiently. “Can we make it there?”

The older girl swallowed hard. “This way,” she said, directing her friends towards a narrow corridor to their left. It was actually a passage to the refuse heaps, and overlooked for a particular reason. “Hold your breath,” she instructed.

Azelma let out a belching sound. “Cosette, you can’t be serious!”

“It’s the only way!” Cosette argued. She could almost hear the prison guards coming for them, tramping in the passages above their heads or worse, waiting at the end of the tunnel. She took Eponine’s wrist to lead her and the other children down a corridor turning right, then another turning left. At last when she felt certain that no one was following them, she nodded to her friends. “To Hangar 8 now.”

“I sometimes hate it when you do this, Cosette,” Eponine muttered. “It’s scary.”

“It works though!” Gavroche cheered. “Look!”

The sight of the mostly empty hangar nearly had Cosette shouting for joy, till she realized what sort of ship was in the middle of it. “We’re flying out in _that_?” she whispered, gaping in horror at the dilapidated freighter occupying the hangar.

“Got any other ideas?” Eponine challenged as they raced up the ship’s gangplank. “They call us rubbish pickers, and we may as well live up to it one more time, you know!”


	2. Chapter 2

 

**LIBERATION FLIGHT**

_Chapter 2: No Longer Lost_

_‘Poe, I heard you’re still searching for Skywalker?”_

_“It’s a job for the best pilot of the Resistance. And you, Valjean?”_

_“Will go after someone, for the sake of an old friend.”_

That had been the last time Jean Valjean had seen his protégé, Poe Dameron, and every day since then he had wondered if letting his friend go off on a mad quest was the wisest decision. ‘ _Last I heard, Poe was on his way to Jakku, the refuse heap of the galaxy,’_ he thought. It was a mad mission, but certainly no worse than his more personal venture.

This was why he had taken his personal craft, the _Chimera_ , instead of using the arguably faster Resistance ships. If he failed, there would be less risk of anyone tracing him back to his friends, thus leading them into danger. ‘ _It isn’t the Falcon though, but it is quite a skipper,’_ Jean Valjean thought admiringly as he surveyed his ship. The _Chimera_ lived up to its name, being a cross between a corvette and a shuttle, and as a result was quite ungainly to the casual observer. Yet it was swift, enough to evade pirates and most importantly, keep up with Poe and the other pilots during missions against the First Order.

The thought of Poe had him shaking his head again. Last he’d heard, during a break between jumps, Poe Dameron had been lost on Jakku.  Not only had his fighter been blown to bits, but his BB-8 droid was nowhere to be found. ‘ _This would not happen if you’d just show yourself again, Skywalker,’_ Jean Valjean thought as he gritted his teeth. As matters stood, he had a better chance of calling out into the void for Poe and other lost comrades, than of ever finding the one person who could set this entire mess straight.

Then again, there was more chance of finding the missing Katana Fleet than ever understanding the ways of the Force, even for a once-Jedi like Jean Valjean, formerly of Commenor and now of nowhere.

The old man thumbed the comlink of his shuttle even as the display before him reverted from hyperspace into the cold blackness of the Kessel system. ‘ _An interesting place I have had too much of,’_ he decided. This side of the galaxy boasted some truly beautiful planets, as well as several black holes and a few other rocks of misery in between. Valjean’s gut tightened at the sight of a lopsided asteroid-sized planetoid that soon came into his line of sight. He would have known the old Kessel prison anywhere--and the sight of a small craft escaping its orbit.

He lost no time in angling his ship towards the fleeing freighter, even before the first squad of pursuing fighters left the prison planet’s atmosphere. Such situations always required assistance, even if unlooked for. Jean Valjean immediately fired a couple of shots at the nearest fighter and blasted it apart, giving the cargo ship an opportunity to take a sharp turn left and escape into the shadow of the prison planet. ‘ _Good call,’_ he thought as he went after the remaining four starfighters. Whoever was at the helm surely knew his or her business----or at least had tried escaping before.

He gritted his teeth as a burst of green came from the planet’s surface, and an ion cannon bolt nearly caught the fleeing freighter. ‘ _You have to jump to hyperspace now if you want to live!’_ he thought as he banked sharply away from the escapee, in hopes of further shaking the fighters. Much to his alarm the freighter seemed to be making no such move, but was now engaged in a dogfight against two of the fighters. A laser glanced across the freighter, jolting and searing its surface, but the hull of the ship was not breached. Jean Valjean quickly chased away the other two fighters, succeeding in having one caught in another blast from the ion cannon. Yet when he looked back the freighter had already taken out its last enemies, but was not making any move to jump. ‘ _Something is wrong,’_ he realized.

Jean Valjean quickly keyed the comm of his ship. “Freighter B67, this is the _Chimera_. Do you need any assistance?” he hailed. He had no idea as to who was on the ship, but he could certainly sense life in it. Now was not the time to be asking about motivations or allegiances. He keyed the comm again. “Freighter B67, do you copy? Your ship has sustained some damage. Do you need assistance?”

After a moment the comm beeped to life. “Freighter B67 to _Chimera_. Thanks for the help, but we’ll be fine---wait, what do you mean we’re not fine?” a young female voice said frantically. “What happened to the hyperdrive?”

Jean Valjean sighed deeply. “Is your ship capable of jumping to hyperspace? The wardens will send reinforcements within minutes.”

Some arguing came from the other side of the comm. “Are you with the First Order?” another voice chimed in.

“You don’t just ask strangers about that!” a third voice groaned. “Azelma, give the comm back to Ponine, she’s the one doing the talking.”

Jean Valjean looked around and saw some fighters already leaving the planet. “Freighter B67, we don’t have much time---“

“We’re getting on board, please!” a fourth, high pitched voice cut in. “Please. We need to get out of the system at least.”

“Very well then,” Jean Valjean said even as he gently brought the _Chimera_ to the apparently crippled freighter. As he got to his feet and made his way to the controls to dock the ships, he could feel the weight of his lightsaber at his belt. ‘ _Hopefully I will not have to use it,’_ he told himself as he opened the ship’s doors. “We have to make it quick. The escape was too easy,” he said gruffly as he motioned for the four youngsters to hurry aboard.

“You think? Getting into the ship was the problem,” one of the newcomers, the first one he’d spoken to, said as she stepped into the _Chimera_. She couldn’t have been more than seventeen years old, if her height and build were any indicator, but her dark eyes told of far more suffering than that handful of years could possibly hold.  Her dark red hair was tied back from her face, in contrast to the harsh prison tunic she wore.

“Were you the pilot?” Jean Valjean asked. “That was rather enterprising of you to take that ship.”

“It should have worked out better,” the girl said before nodding to her three companions, as if to reassure them. She looked keenly at Jean Valjean. “Who are you?”

Before Jean Valjean could say anything, he heard a beeping from the cockpit. “Strap yourselves in. We have a jump to make,” he instructed before hurrying back into the pilot’s seat. There were four strangers on his ship, but they were young and most likely well armed. He was certain he could manage, even for a little while. He nodded to the redheaded girl. “I need a co-pilot.”

For a moment suspicion passed across this stranger’s face, but a knowing smile reached her eyes as she slid into the second chair in the cockpit. “You’ve got weapons. Gavroche and Cosette can be the gunners,” she said.

The name was like a bell on Valjean’s ears. ‘ _Of course I have seen that face before,’_ he thought as he looked back at the four newcomers. Three of them were obviously related: though one had red tresses and two had darker hair, they still had the same slightly long nose and freckles. The fourth though was different, with golden hair and blue eyes. Her pensive yet calm mien was unmistakable; he had last seen the likes of it only several months before.

**

_He had caught up with her again in a tapcaf in the middle of nowhere, just like all the times they had ever met up. Once again he had asked her the same thing: “When?”_

_Fantine only shook her head once more. “You know why I will not. She’s not safe with me.”_

_“A girl needs her mother,” Jean Valjean argued. “When was the last time you saw her?”_

_“Seven years ago.”_

_“A holo does not count, my friend.”_

_The blonde woman let out a ragged breath. Although she was only thirty-seven, she already seemed bent and ragged---clearly from too many nights of pining. A wrinkle creased the corner of her mouth as she struggled for words. “With the Thenardiers she has parents. A home. It may not be much, but it is better than taking her with me into all these missions.”_

_Jean Valjean sighed deeply. None of her reasons, however solid, ever rang true. She was always stubborn in that way. “They cannot train her. It’s only a matter of time till she will catch on to her abilities. She’s your daughter, and she took after you.”_

_“A war is no place to train a young apprentice, Jean,” Fantine said, putting her hand in his. “She will only be discovered if she comes with me. I will not have her at my side, only to give her up to Snoke. I am not letting her turn out like Kylo Ren.”_

_The mention of this rogue made Valjean shudder, as well as bite back the other suggestion he had hoped to make. It would not do to drag the Solos or Luke Skywalker into this personal problem. “Well what will you do?”_

_“All I need is a little more time. Then I will look for her,” Fantine resolved. Her blue eyes glimmered as she met Jean Valjean’s own. “If you find her first, bring her to the Resistance. It will be safer for her there, and surely we will meet someplace.”_

_He nodded, knowing his friend was not one to be gainsaid. “I promise.”_

_“Thank you,” Fantine whispered as she pressed his hand and then unclipped her lightsaber from her belt. “I will leave a message for her. You will give it, with this lightsaber.”_

_“You need a weapon.”_

_“I cannot take it with me in the Hosnian system. I need my cover.”_

_Jean Valjean swallowed hard as he took the lightsaber. “I’ll do my best.”_

**

Somehow that best, whether it was ingenuity or the work of the Force, had led him to this odd pass. ‘ _Though why at Kessel, of all places?’_ Jean Valjean wondered as soon as the ship had made the jump to hyperspace, and the youngsters had been properly settled. Then again, he figured he shouldn’t have been so surprised considering Cosette’s companions. “Where are your parents?” he questioned the trio.

“They wouldn’t come,” the oldest, Eponine, replied. She gave him a tight-lipped smile. “They helped us escape though.”

“You mean Papa wouldn’t,” her sister Azelma corrected her. “He won’t leave without his friends.”

This mention of old Thenardier’s gang of spice runners and bounty hunters made Jean Valjean taste bile in the back of his throat. “We’d better hope they don’t come after us soon,” he muttered. Yet perhaps there will not be reason for it. There is no longing, no pain in these youngsters’ voices, only that grimness of those in flight. These are children who have not had a home in years.

“That depends where we’re headed,” the boy named Gavroche said. He gave Jean Valjean a winsome grin. “Who are you anyway?”

“Someone who is here to help you,” Jean Valjean said as he turned his attention to checking the coolant levels. That explanation would suffice.

Cosette shook her head. “You’re a Jedi. I didn’t think there were any left.”

Jean Valjean closed his eyes. Of course she would guess. “Rumors travel even to Kessel.”

“I know,” Cosette insisted. She shrugged at the questioning looks her friends gave her. “You always thought it was fancy.”

“It is. The Emperor had all of the Jedi killed, except for Luke Skywalker---and he’s gone too, if he was there at all,” Eponine said, crossing her arms. “Everyone knows that.”

It was all that Jean Valjean could do not to laugh. The Empire, and now the First Order had done its work well. “So it would seem,” he said before continuing to check over the ship. As he expected the young Thenardiers only exchanged sceptical looks, but Cosette remained silent.

He waited till hours later, when the youngsters had finally gone to sleep, before pulling out of a jump and checking on the messages and communications sent to him. He swallowed hard on finding one straight from General Organa herself. “This is a surprise, General,” he greeted, only to be surprised by the click of the call coming in through to real time instead of being recorded. He sighed as he saw the familiar lined features of this warrior-woman. “What do you need me for?”

“It is not me, it is everyone else,” Leia Organa replied in a firm tone, but still there was warmth in her smile. “Head straight to D’Qar. Where are you?”

Jean Valjean took a moment to check the coordinates. “Near Akiva.” It was a good way from D’Qar but he was sure to make the jumps easily. “What has happened?”

Leia’s eyes flashed with a look of sorrow. “We have just confirmed reports that the First Order has used a superweapon on the Hosnian system. There are no survivors.”

These words stabbed into Jean Valjean’s mind, forcing him to grip the console. “When?”

“Twelve standard hours ago.” Leia took a deep breath. “Come back. Did you find what you were looking for?”

Jean Valjean glanced to where the four rescued youngsters were curled up in two bunks. “Yes. Somewhat.” He saw some movement in one of the bunks, prompting him to quickly end his call. “You should rest,” he said.

Cosette shook her head. “I can’t.” She looked at Jean Valjean for a moment. “Something is wrong.”

Jean Valjean nodded, knowing better than to lie to her face. He owed her at least that much. “There has been terrible news, of a First Order attack on the Hosnian system.”

“So it’s true,” Cosette whispered. “That’s why we left. We didn’t want to be next.”

Jean Valjean sighed; he couldn’t put it past the First Order to decide on a way to wipe out its ‘unmentionables’ in one go. “How long were you on Kessel?”

“Six years.”

“And where were you before that?”

Cosette counted out on her fingers. “Thyferra, then Folor, and then other places. I’ve lost count. We tend to move all the time.”  She looked enviously towards the ship’s console. “I wish I could fly. I just never could pick it up.”

“Each to his or her own,” Jean Valjean pointed out. He watched as the girl sat down and rested her chin on her hands. “Where are your parents?”

“I don’t know. I never met my father, or at least I don’t remember---“ Cosette trailed off. “My mother is out there. I know it.”

‘ _Was,’_ Valjean almost said but he bit back this terrible word tugging at his lips. He looked at Cosette for a few moments, wondering if like him, she had also felt this sense of disquiet. “I knew your mother. She is a friend of mine.”

Cosette sat up straight. “How?”

“I travel. She travels.” He got to his feet and went to a side panel, where he kept some datacards in a special compartment where most searching equipment could not pick up on their presence. It took him a moment to find the datacard in question, which he then pressed in Cosette’s hand. “It might be a coincidence---maybe she might have known---but she told me to give this to you,” he said before indicating a console where she could play the message. He hung back to give her some privacy, but a nod from Cosette was enough to prompt him to stay near.

It took a few moments for the recorded transmission to stop flickering, and show a hologram of Fantine sitting at a table. ‘ _My darling Cosette. It’s me, your mother. I know I should be telling you this in person---and I promise I will someday—and I’m sorry I can’t be here. I’m sorry I haven’t been there for all this time, my love. Nothing I can do or say can possibly make up for it, even if everything I have done has always been to keep you safe. I wish I could have seen you grow up into the lovely, amazing young lady I am sure you are. I wish I could hear your voice again and hug you like I used to, when you were little._

_If you’re watching this, I presume you’ve just met my friend Jean Valjean. Go with him to the Resistance. You will be well cared for there---and there I will find you. I’m sure of it. Learn all you can from him. He has much to teach you’_

For a moment the hologram flickered, as if Fantine had thought of turning off the transmission. Then after a while her image became clear again. “ _I think you’ve known for some time that you are a little different. I don’t know what the Thenardiers will tell you, but this I will tell you now---the stories I told you as a little girl are real. There are Jedi Knights. And I am one too. I am sorry I haven’t told you yet about my past, and of the abilities you have. But you’re not just a bright little girl. You’re special. You’ll understand more when you’re older and when I see you, but for now all I can tell you is this---trust your instincts. They are more right than you know._

_I will see you soon, my darling. I promise.’_

At last the hologram image faded out entirely, leaving Cosette sitting alone in the chair. In the light it was evident that her cheeks were wet. “I won’t,” she whispered. She looked at Jean Valjean. “Was she in the Hosnian system too?”

“Yes. Her last mission was there,” Jean Valjean said, feeling the words grow thick in his throat. He got up to open another compartment next to the one where he kept the datacards, and brought out the lightsaber. “She told me to give this to you.”

Cosette’s eyes went wide as she saw the weapon. “Why?”

“She always knew,” Jean Valjean said. He paused when he saw the hesitating look in her eyes. “In either case it should go to you.”

“What use would I have for it?” Cosette choked out. “Me....to use it?””

“Do you feel you should?”

“She would have wanted me to.”

‘ _But what is it that you want, or what lies ahead?’_ Jean Valjean wanted to ask. He was not one to believe too easily in prophecies anymore, not after everything that had happened. “If you wish, I will keep it for you, in the meantime.”

Cosette nodded after a few moments. “We have to go to the Resistance though. Even if my mother won’t find me there anymore---I don’t want to die. I don’t want them to die.”

Jean Valjean looked to the three Thenardiers, still dozing in their corner. “To D’Qar it is then,” he muttered. He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry for your loss, Cosette.”

“Thank you,” she whispered. She wiped her face before looking at him. “Thank you for telling me.”


	3. Chapter 3

 

**LIBERATION FLIGHT**

_Chapter 3: A Jedi’s Path_

Throughout the rest of the trip to D’Qar, all that Cosette could think about was how in some way, she had already _understood_ what had happened in the Hosnian system. ‘ _You felt her die,’_ she realized as she sat curled up on the floor of the _Chimera._ There was no other way she could explain that sudden loss, that gaping hole somewhere deep down where that warm reassurance used to be.

She looked up in time to see Eponine sit next to her. “I’m sorry,” the redheaded girl whispered. “I saw you watching your mother’s message.”

Cosette nodded quickly. “I always thought I’d know what to say if I ever saw her,” she said after a while. She didn’t even want to think of the other bequest, that lightsaber she had asked Jean Valjean to keep for the meantime. She looked to where Azelma was trying to distract Gavroche with a game of cards; their laughter was the loudest thing right now in the _Chimera_. “Are you ever going to come back for your parents?” she asked Eponine.

Eponine laughed hollowly as she shook her head. “What, and fly right back into the arms of Patron-Minette? Bounty hunters have a particular way of welcoming people.”

Cosette squeezed her friend’s arm, comforted by her usual wry humor. “Not going to happen, I promise.” At that moment she felt the _Chimera_ lurch, nearly throwing her and Eponine backwards. “What’s happening?”

“We’ve just arrived at D’Qar,” Jean Valjean said, pointing to a greenish-blue sphere coming up fast on their view. He was silent for a moment, clearly contemplating something. “We must hurry. Something is on its way.”

Cosette shook her head when she saw Eponine mouth the words ‘ _Hosnian system’_. No, this foreboding was something more akin to a shadow creeping up, even calling to her. ‘ _Should I run from this one too?’_ she wondered even as she and Eponine took seats to watch the _Chimera’s_ descent into D’Qar’s atmosphere.

Azelma gasped as she dashed into the cockpit. “How old are these woods?” she asked, pointing to all the green islands below them. “I’ve never seen so much water before!”

“You have, when we were little,” Eponine drawled as she twisted in her seat.

Gavroche was jumping up and down. “X-wings? I didn’t know they still flew them.”

“Out here, yes. They may not be as fast as A-wings but they are very reliable, and good in a fight,” Jean Valjean said amiably as he steered the craft towards an open field opposite a sort of bunker. “Now this is the base.”

Cosette leaned in her seat to get a better look at the crowds now milling about the entrance to the base. While she was no stranger to moving with urgency, she had never seen so many people hurrying about so freely and yet with such purpose. ‘ _Are they unafraid?’_ she wondered as Jean Valjean landed the _Chimera_. “Are you going to tell them where we’re from?” she asked him worriedly.

“Only those who must know,” Jean Valjean reassured her as he unbuckled his seatbelt and got to his feet. He adjusted the lightsaber on his belt before pressing the controls to the hatchway. “Stay close. Looks like there’s a lot we have to catch up on.”

What lingering weariness Cosette might have felt was instantly banished at the first feel of cool air against her face. She quickly headed out after Jean Valjean, in time to see him waving to a young man wearing an orange jumper. ‘ _A pilot,’_ she realized on seeing this stranger’s crash helmet. “A student?” she asked him candidly.

“Only in flying,” Jean Valjean said proudly. “I had never thought I’d see you again, Poe,” he said warmly to the younger pilot.

“Takes more than a crash on Jakku to ground me,” Poe said even as he saluted Jean Valjean. His eyes widened on seeing the youngsters. “New recruits?”

Jean Valjean shrugged before nodding to Cosette and the Thenardiers. “Poe, I’d like you to meet Eponine, Azelma, and Gavroche Thenardier, and Cosette. My friends, meet Poe Dameron, leader of the Red and Blue squadrons.”

Poe made a slight bow. “Welcome to D’Qar. It should be Jean Valjean leading the flights, not me.” He looked from the older man and then to the youngsters. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

Before Jean Valjean could say anything he had caught sight of another person walking up to them. This one was a woman who could have been perhaps forty or older, but there was something decidedly regal about her bearing. “General Organa,” he greeted with a low bow.

“I’m glad you came promptly, Valjean. There is much that has to be discussed,” General Organa said. She looked keenly at Cosette, and something like a light of recognition brightened her eyes, which grew solemn again after a moment. “It is good you’re here at D’Qar.”

“Best ground we’ve had in a while,” Eponine mumbled. She looked around at the fighters being towed into the bunker, and still more being refitted on the tarmac. “Are all of these flight capable?”

“Eponine is a pilot,:” Gavroche chimed in. “She’s the one who flew us out of Kessel.”

Poe turned to look at Eponine. “Did you really?”

“We stole a ship, I did some evasive manuevers, but our hyperdrive got shot. That was where he came in,” Eponine replied, glancing at Jean Valjean, who was now being pulled into a conference with General Organa and another man of advanced years. She started as she got another glance at this trio. “Is that actually Han Solo with them?”

“Yes, in the flesh,” Poe said, grinning widely. He waved to a burly young man wearing a rather bedraggled jacket. “Finn! There are some people I want you to meet.”

‘ _The man has the build of a stormtrooper,’_ Cosette could not help thinking even as she came forward to meet this new friend. “Are people in the Resistance always this friendly?”

“We exercise caution. Finn though is a different story; if it wasn’t for him I’d still be a captive of Kylo Ren,” Poe said as he slung an arm around Finn’s shoulders.

“And if Poe didn’t fly me out, I’d still be with the First Order,” Finn explained. His voice, though softer than Poe’s, was nonetheless rather calming. “Are you all new here to the base?”

“Captain Valjean brought them in. They escaped Kessel,” Poe said.

Finn’s eyes widened. “How? That is supposed to be impossible---“

“Like getting off Jakku,” Poe said. He sighed when he saw General Organa signing to them. “We’re needed, and we still have to talk how we’ll get to your friend Rey.”

Somehow the mention of this name made Finn set his jaw for a moment, but his look was warm when he nodded to Cosette and the Thenardiers. “Excuse us for a moment. We’ll see you around later?”

“You will,” Cosette said before the men walked off. As brief as this welcome had been, it was enough to cheer her significantly. “I think we’ll be safe here.”

“They’re going to a fight,” Azelma said. She shook her head. “If it’s against the First Order, I don’t know if they can win.”

“With those ships they can,” Gavroche quipped. “That’s why they’ve lasted this long.”

‘ _Will it be enough?’_ Cosette wondered as she looked up at the sky, almost fearing that she would once again see that terrible bolt of light. As it was, all she saw was an encompassing blue, broken only by the grey of the gathering clouds.

**

Although everyone soon knew of the destruction of the Starkiller Base, and soon enough of the loss of Han Solo at the hands of Kylo Ren, it was only after some hours that Cosette finally met Rey.

While the Thenardier siblings had been eager to sit around and listen to Poe and his comrades talk of their attack on the Starkiller weapon, Cosette had only desired to be alone. ‘ _It came a little too late,’_ she could not help thinking. No amount of celebration could fill the void in her mind and heart.

As she wandered the hallways near the infirmary, she caught sight of a dark haired young woman seated near a door, occasionally glancing back towards where some medics were examining a wounded man. Cosette started, realizing that the man in the infirmary was none other than Finn. Somehow she must have made a noise, since suddenly the young woman seated nearby got to her feet. “I’m sorry if I’m in the way,” this stranger said.

“No, I was just passing by,” Cosette blurted out. Yet that moment was enough for her to realize who she was talking to; the woman who was on Finn’s mind, the one who had seen Han Solo’s last moments, the one who was more than just a scavenger from Jakku. “You’re Rey.”

Rey’s green eyes widened for a moment with surprise before she held out her hand. “You’re Cosette. I heard you and your friends escaped from Kessel.”

Cosette nodded, knowing that this was going to be part of many an introduction for days to come. “I’m sorry about what happened to Finn, and Han Solo too,” she said in a hushed voice.

“It shouldn’t have gone that way,” Rey said before taking a deep breath before sitting down again. “At least Finn is still alive. The medics don’t know when he’ll wake up, but he will.”

“I’m sure,” Cosette said, feeling slightly heartened at the optimistic tone in Rey’s voice.”Finn and Poe welcomed me and my friends. They are very nice.”

A slight smile spread across Rey’s face. “Poe said that too, about you,” she said even as she motioned for Cosette to also take a seat. “Have you seen him?”

“Celebrating with the other pilots. My friends are there too.”

“Why don’t you join them?”

Cosette swallowed hard even as her mother’s message came to mind again. “I can’t. Not today.” She looked at Rey again. “My mother was on the ground during the attack on the Hosnian planet.”

“I’m sorry too,” Rey said. She tugged at a loose string on her tunic. “Did she know you were headed here, with the Resistance?”

“It was her idea to come here. I only found out from the roundabout, from Captain Valjean.” It was then that Cosette caught sight of an object that Rey had kept by her feet. “Are you a Jedi too?”

“No.” Rey picked up the lightsaber carefully, as if weighing it in her hand. “I don’t know why this came to me. A few days ago, all I wanted was to be found and to get off the planet Jakku. I never thought I’d end up doing it myself.” She looked at Cosette keenly. “You know what this is?”

“I’ve begun wondering about something similar to it. My mother’s,” Cosette confessed. “It’s not with me now though. I asked someone to hold it for a while.”

Rey nodded understandingly. “Because you weren’t looking for it too.”

**

Despite the frenzy of the Resistance planning its next moves while the First Order was still reeling from the loss of its strongest weapon, it was still easy for Cosette to fall into a routine of sorts. Every day after breakfast she would join the Thenardiers and Poe as they explored the base and tinkered with the fighter craft. Oftentimes Rey joined them; it turned out that she was also very handy with ships, but at some point in the day she would end up heading to the infirmary to see to Finn. Usually Poe followed her, and occasionally he brought the Thenardiers along. Sometimes Cosette stayed for a short time, but more often than not she found herself joining Rey’s vigil, occasionally exchanging stories and conjectures, but more often than not remaining silent in a necessary sort of way.

“I wasn’t born on Kessel, as you can guess,” she said to Rey one day. “I only got there a few years ago. We moved around a lot. Sometimes I recorded messages for my mother, but I didn’t know if she ever really got them.”

“I wasn’t born on Jakku either. I remember being left there,” Rey said. “I was waiting for my family.”

“Why did you leave then?” Cosette asked.

“Finn and BB-8,” Rey said with a weak laugh. “I had to keep them safe. Then it couldn’t just stop there.”

“Because of Han Solo?”

“Partly that. I owe General Organa at least that much.”

Cosette swallowed hard at the terse way Rey clenched her fists. “Something happened on the Starkiller. You fought Kylo Ren.”

“He wasn’t only Kylo Ren. He was someone else, once,” Rey said. “I couldn’t kill him.” 

“Why?”

“Somehow it would not have been right to.”

It was then that Cosette noticed General Organa walking up the hallway. “Good morning,” she and Rey greeted quickly.

General Organa smiled wearily. Even with the lines making her eyes seem pinched and older than she really was, she still had that commanding presence. “Have you been here all day?” she asked kindly.

Rey shook her head. “I was wondering if today would be the day.”

“I see,” General Organa said, though it was not clear if she was talking of Rey’s waiting for Finn to wake up, or of something else entirely. She looked towards the infirmary for a moment. “He’s strong. He knows he has people waiting on him.”

“I hope so,” Rey said. She smiled on seeing a little droid rolling up the hallway. “What’s going on, BB-8?”

The droid made a hooting sound and turned its head around twice, making Rey laugh. “Well they aren’t going to leave me behind,” she said. She nodded to General Organa. “I’m being looked for in the hangar.”

“Go then,” General Organa said. Her tone was warm, almost motherly, and that same mien was there when she looked again at Cosette. “Your friends will miss you.”

Cosette shrugged wryly, thinking of all the fun that the Thenardiers and Poe, and now even Rey as well would be having.  “Sometimes I do not know what to feel about it.”

The older woman nodded sympathetically. “I’m sorry about your mother. She was a brave woman, one of the strongest I ever met.”

The mention of her mother made Cosette start. “You knew her?”

“She and Captain Valjean were among my operatives,” General Organa said. She took a deep breath. “She loved you. She always spoke of you.”

“Did she ever say when she was going back for me?” Cosette could not help asking.

General Organa sighed. “I was trying to make the Hosnian system her last mission. Things have changed----“ she trailed off. “You must understand; for some mothers, there are worse things than seeing their child die.”

Somehow Cosette could not help thinking of Kylo Ren, or at least as he was mentioned in Rey’s and Poe’s stories, but before she could ask about this, General Organa had left to speak to someone else down the hall.

**

“I lost several pilots out there,” Poe said one morning as he was looking over his roster during breakfast. “Perhaps you would be interested in taking the test?” he asked the three Thenardiers.

Eponine glanced at her siblings before shrugging. “Gavroche is too young. I’d like to give it a try.”

Poe nodded gratefully before looking at Azelma. “What about you?”

“I don’t fly,” Azelme said. She gave her sister a furtive glance. “It makes me dizzy.”

“Then I guess it’s only me then,” Eponine said as she took a healthy sip of the last of a mug of caf before getting to her feet. “When can we start?”

“Right away,” Poe said. He sighed when a beeping sound came from his BB-* droid, which till then had been sitting quietly next to the bench. “It’s only a sim, relax. You know as well as I do that we need pilots.”

“It’s going to be fine, BB-8,” Eponine quipped. “I won’t hurt him too much.”

“Oh aren’t you eager,” Cosette commented, but even so she could not miss the wariness that had suddenly crept into Azelma’s eyes on hearing this exchange. “It’s just a sim. A test,” she said once Eponine and Poe were out of earshot.

“Ponine will make it. I’m sure,” Gavroche said cheerily. “She’s one of the best.”

“That’s just the problem,” Azelma muttered. “It’s dangerous out there. The Starkiller Base is gone, but there’s still Snoke.”

The mention of the Supreme Leader of the First Order made Cosette shiver. “He’s not getting to us,” she said firmly. “I promise that.”

“They almost did,” Azelma said. “If it wasn’t for the Starkiller blowing up, we’d all be dead by now. It could happen again.”

“It won’t. Not right away.”

“But still----“

Gavroche stuck out his tongue. “So we’ll fight back harder. We’ve got Jedi—“

“Is that enough?” Azelma challenged. “That Kylo Ren was a Jedi too, so they say.”

‘ _Halfway there,’_ Cosette thought but she knew better than to voice this out.  Sometimes it was enough to assure Azelma that all would be well, but today her friend was far too agitated for such talk. ‘ _There’s Snoke and Kylo Ren, they’re right about that, but that’s not the end of it,’_ she thought as she headed out of the mess hall and towards the general direction of the infirmary.

Oddly enough, Rey was not there, but instead she was in another room, surveying a large starmap. She turned and smiled when she heard Cosette enter. “Have you seen this before?”

“Never. Where is it supposed to lead?” Cosette asked.

“To Luke Skywalker,” Rey said. She patted the domed astromech droid that had been projecting the starmap. “If you’d woken up earlier, R2D2, we might have figured this out faster.”

Cosette rolled her eyes when the droid made an indignant sound. “I think he’s arguing with you.”

“Something about the right time,” Rey said. She passed her hand over the starmap, stopping over an isolated planet. “I have to talk to General Organa. It was supposed to have been Poe’s mission but he’s needed here.”

“When Finn wakes up, he’ll need you,” Cosette pointed out. She could feel the tug too in Rey’s mind, something that was becoming far more of a certainty the longer they stayed in this room. “What will we say to him, when he wakes up and you’re not here?”

“I’ll worry about that,” Rey answered resolutely. “Are you staying?”

“Maybe,” Cosette said, even as she remembered now the scene in the mess hall. “Should I go with you?”

Rey was quiet for several long moments. “No. I’d like it if you would, but I can’t be sure what will happen when I find him.” She patted R2D2 again, who then turned off the astromech. “Before Han Solo went after....I mean, before the attack on Takadona, he asked me if I wanted to be a sort of co-pilot. Chewbacca said the offer still stands. I’m taking it.”

“But you will be back,” Cosette pointed out. “In the meantime, I can learn something from Captain Valjean. He was a Jedi---“

“There is only so much I can teach you both,” Jean Valjean’s voice cut in. The two young women turned to see the old Jedi standing at the entrance to the chart room. Jean Valjean’s expression was wan as he regarded them. “My own skills have their limits. There are many things you have to learn that I cannot impart to you.”

“But you’re the only Jedi here among us,” Rey argued.

Jean Valjean gave her a sad smile. “In the days of the Old Republic, the Jedi had vast archives, and resources for learning about the Force. Now they are gone, and the last vestiges of them may very well be in that old Temple you seek.”

Cosette nodded, knowing all too well now what everyone was thinking. “So finding Luke Skywalker is the only way to make sense of this?”

“That,” Jean Valjean said. “And to make all things new.”

**

 When Cosette made her way back to the hangar, she was just in time to catch Eponine talking heatedly with her siblings. At last the older Thenardier girl sighed and nodded. “Alright, I’ll tell them,” she seethed before stalking off. Eponine took a few moments to wipe her face before marching off towards where Poe and some other pilots were waiting by their ships.

Poe gave her a questioning look. ‘What was that about?”

“I’m not doing it,” Eponine said. She glanced back at Azelma and Gavroche. “I didn’t get my siblings away from Kessel just to have them in the middle of this war.”

“Eponine, the war will rage on no matter where we all are,” Poe said. “Here, we stand a fighting chance.”

“Till the next Starkiller.” Eponine bit her lip for a moment before turning to look at Cosette. “Are you coming with us? We’re leaving on the next transport.”

“For where?” Cosette asked.

“Anywhere,” Eponine said. “Come on, it will be an adventure. The four of us, as always. I can fly, Gavroche is good at fixing things, and I’m sure you and Azelma can find something to do.”

‘ _I already know what it is,’_ Cosette almost said. She saw Eponine shake her head; apparently she had noticed her hesitation. “How long will we be running?”

“Is there a definite answer to such things?” Eponine retorted impatiently.  “You don’t want to spend the rest of your life fighting---“

“It’s about the same as running,” Cosette pointed out. Of course there was the First Order out there, but there were also pirates, Patron Minette, and other dangers to consider. ‘ _Those are not the only things in this galaxy,’_ she reminded herself.

Poe glanced uncomfortably at the two young women. “Maybe I should go.”

“Don’t,” Cosette said. She wanted him to hear what she had to say to Eponine, if only for safety’s sake. “If you run, you’ll need eyes and ears.”

“And you’ll be that?” Eponine asked. “It’s not the same.”

“I thought the goal was to stop running,” Cosette said. She glanced down at her still empty hands. “Give me some time to think. I’ll let you know.”

Eponine nodded reluctantly. “Be quick about it.”

Cosette quickly hurried back to the chart room, where she now saw Jean Valjean sitting alone. “I wish you could train me and Rey,” she said. “It would be so much simpler.”

Jean Valjean looked at her. “Usually a Jedi Master can only take one apprentice at a time. Having two or more would often foster undue competition, then rivalry, then anger. I will not let it happen to you both.”

“Well then why did you not search for Luke Skywalker too?” Cosette demanded. “You, a Jedi---“

“When he left----or rather after his apprentice undid his work and slew so many others, there were a number of consequences that could not be foreseen or undone,” Jean Valjean answered. “My part was to stay away, recoup what could be found once more, and keep your mother safe.”

Cosette swallowed hard. “What was her name?”

“Fantine. She had no other name.” Jean Valjean got to his feet slowly. “You have a path for you, that none of us---I, your friends, General Organa, or even your mother’s memory can decide. Take the time you need, Cosette.”

She did not look up as Jean Valjean left the room, with the R2D2 droid rolling out quickly after him. Instead she only went to the narrow window and looked out over the lush landscape of D’Qar, with its waterways and forests. ‘ _Till a few days ago, you did not know of this,’_ she thought. ‘ _And there is still much you do not know either.’_

She took a deep breath as she felt the breeze stir her hair, and then turned back towards the hangar. By this time she saw Gavroche helping Azelma and Eponine load up some boxes on an awaiting ship. Cosette walked quickly towards them, and helped pick up a box. “Where do I set this down?”

Azelma cocked her head. “You’re coming with us?”

“Not today,” Cosette replied. She met Eponine’s piercing gaze. “I’ll be your eyes and ears, for now.”

Eponine sucked in a breath between gritted teeth. “It could be a long while. Are you sure about this?”

“You’ll need me, differently.”

“That’s true.”

Gavroche nudged Cosette. “When you become a Jedi, you’ll be able to help us talk to any traders. May as well make it easier for my sisters to go legit.”

“I’m not sure that’s how it works,” Cosette laughed before Gavroche clapped her back and Azelma pulled her into a hug. She broke away after a few moments to also embrace Eponine. “Stay safe. I’ll find you once I figure it out.”

Eponine nodded fiercely, clearly holding back her tears. “You’d better.” She pulled away and nodded to Rey, who was also just entering the hangar. “Do you need a ride too?”

“Chewbacca needs a co-pilot,” Rey said, gesturing to the Milennium Falcon. “What about you?”

“We’re making a stop,” Eponine drawled. “You watch yourself, please?”

“I will,” Rey promised. She walked up to Poe and Cosette. “When Finn wakes up, let me know?”

“We will,” Poe said, clasping her hand. “Fly fast and sure, Rey. We’re counting on you.”

Rey nodded before looking to Cosette. “I’ll let you know too what happens...if I get anywhere.”

“I have a feeling I’ll be joining you sooner than later,” Cosette confided. She was not sure what else to say by way of leavetaking, so she simply clasped Rey’s hand as well. “Till we meet again.”

Rey smiled before going off to speak to General Organa, who was waiting now near the exit. In the meantime Cosette hung back to let the ground crews finish preparing the ships for takeoff. She sighed when she saw Poe adjusting his ragged jacket. “Looks like you’ll be keeping that for a while.”

Poe let out a deep breath. “For as long as it takes.” He gave Cosette a questioning look. “I thought you’d go with them.”

“Not yet,” Cosette said. “It’s a big galaxy after all but a small base. We need more room.”

Poe laughed as he put his hands in his pockets. “You have a lot on your hands, Cosette.” He glanced to the hangar exit. “I’ll check on Finn. I don’t know what to tell him when he wakes up.”

“We’ll know then,” Cosette said before turning to go to her quarters, which were really nothing more than a small billet she had been sharing with the Thenardier girls. She went to her tiny pallet and found to her surprise a wrapped package on her pillow. ‘ _Captain Valjean has his ways,’_ she thought bemusedly even as she pulled off the cloth bindings to reveal the lightsaber she had last seen on the _Chimera_.

She clasped the weapon, feeling its weight fit snugly in her hands. The metal hilt felt strangely warm to the touch, even as her finger easily found the power control. Cosette took a deep breath as the first hum of the weapon filled the silence, a moment before the shadows were dispelled by the blade’s pearl white glow.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**LIBERATION FLIGHT**

_Chapter 4: A Tale in a Spaceport_

One thing Eponine disliked about long hyperspace jumps was the propensity for her to fall into reverie. ‘ _Sometimes there isn’t much else to do after checking calculations and making sure the cargo isn’t moving on its own,’_ she caught herself thinking one day as she leaned back in the skipper’s chair of the _Hawkbat_. A thump at the back of the courier ship drew her attention away from the swirling blue of hyperspace. “Gav, if you and BD-3 put another hole in the containers, you’re paying for it and not me,” she called.

Gavroche stuck out his tongue while the astromech droid he was bickering with rolled across the floor and then made an obnoxious beeping sound. “We’re only playing a game, Ponine. You could get up and be the umpire.”

“No way. We’re getting home any minute now,” Eponine retorted. ‘ _He may be my co-pilot, but he’s really still a kid,’_ she thought. Sometimes this fact was among the few things that kept her going, or at least kept her from turning back.

It had been less than a year since she and her siblings had left D’Qar, and eventually made their way to the planet Bakura. Through some charm and ingenuity, she and Gavroche had managed to get a place on the crew of the _Hawkbat_ , a courier ship owned by an old Toydarian. It had been a welcome surprise when the Toydarian had retired and given the ship over to Eponine, claiming that he had enough credits to fill his belly while Eponine had enough sense to keep the ship going. ‘ _Which is sometimes all one needs to get here and back,’_ she told herself even as she mentally took stock of the goods she was hauling for Azelma’s small shop on the planet’s surface.

Yet even despite the relative quiet of life on Bakura, Eponine still found it impossible to entirely escape the Resistance. Even now she was sure whispers were being passed on the planet’s surface regarding the latest raid that Poe, Finn, and some operatives had made against a First Order stronghold in a nearby system. Such news meant trouble, but if Finn had been mentioned there, then that meant he had somehow recovered from the injuries he had sustained while fighting Kylo Ren. ‘ _Wonder if Rey has faced him again yet,’_ Eponine caught herself thinking. ‘ _Or if she and Cosette ever really got to train.’_

The thought of her childhood companion had Eponine shaking her head. Perhaps, had it not been for Azelma’s insistence on staying out of the fight and the need to keep Gavroche safe, she would have stayed with Cosette. Training with Poe and his pilots was only the icing on the cake. Yet it was not fair to ask her siblings to fight a war not of their choosing, and besides there was the fact that Cosette was _clearly_ meant to train as a Jedi. ‘ _It is not as if you could have followed her into that life anyway,’_ Eponine thought even as the bright starlight of hyperspace reverted into pitch black.

Gavroche laughed as he launched into the co-pilot’s seat. “Look who’s gotten in system too!” he crowed, pointing to another courier ship headed towards the green and blue sphere of Bakura.

Eponine gritted her teeth. “Oh no you do not.” She pressed a button on the comlink. “ _Katarn_ , you know this is the _Hawkbat_. When did you flyboys get in the system?”

A rich, booming laugh sounded back on the comlink. “It’s good to see you here, Eponine. The Chief and Combeferre are fixing up the cargo out back,” a merry voice replied.

Eponine rolled her eyes even as her astromech began making a ‘toodle-oo’ noise. “Cut that jabber, BD-3,” she warned the droid, who only bounced defiantly. She tapped the comm by way of greeting, “Nice going, Courfeyrac. Were you guys in such a hurry to take off that you forgot to tie down the crates in the hold?”

Courfeyrac laughed once again. “Did you hear that, Enjolras? She knows exactly what happened---what, you want the comm? Already?”

Eponine rolled her eyes while Gavroche made a face and wiggled his eyebrows. “Are you guys seriously starting this now?” Gavroche asked.

“Yes because I stand to lose some credits on this,” Eponine retorted. She was not sure what had possessed her to once again, challenge the crew of this other courier to a race, but she was not one to pass up the thrill of the competition. ‘ _Among other things,’_ she thought as she steered the ship down towards Bakura’s atmosphere.

The comm crackled after a few moments. “It would appear you and Gavroche took the roundabout instead of the corridor this time,” a lower voice greeted in a level tone.

 “I’m not risking having First Order fire on my tail, thank you,” Eponine said. Judging by the presence of the _Katarn’s_ astromech making repairs on the courier ship’s wing, her friends’ journey had involved the sort of fracas she made it a point to avoid. She set the comlink aside and looked at Gavroche, who was bouncing BD-3 next to his seat. “Prepare for landing, boys,” she warned. Thankfully there was no turbulence or storm in the atmosphere, thus allowing her to make a smooth descent towards Salis D’aar, the planet’s capital city.

Even as Eponine guided the _Hawkbat_ into the city spaceport, she could not help but notice the sudden paucity of the drydock’s usual personnel, and a sudden preponderance of armed guards in scarlet regalia. ‘ _What is with the uniform change?’_ she wondered as she powered down her ship and opened the hatchway. Before she could take a step forward she saw two guards followed by a spaceport official ascending the ramp. “Is there something afoot, Sir?” she asked.

The official looked down at her. “Where is the captain?”

“I am.” She pulled a card from a compartment on her belt. “There is my identification.”

The official nodded to the guards. “Tell Prefect Javert this ship is clear.” He sneered at Eponine, Gavroche, and their droid. “Aren’t you two a little young?”

“We’re prodigies,” Gavroche said cheekily. “You won’t find the likes of us elsewhere----“

“Gav, really!” Eponine whispered reprovingly. “What seems to be the matter?”

“Routine inspection. You have nothing to fear, Miss Thenardier,” the official said before brusquely handing Eponine’s identification papers back to her and then stomping out of the ship.

Eponine shook her head before hurrying to unload their cargo, determined now to make her way home as soon as possible. “Gav, you might want to rethink going to the tapcaf later,” she said on seeing her brother check his comlink. “I don’t like the looks of this.”

“That’s all the more reason to go. I bet those guards searched the _Katarn_ and other ships too,” Gavroche said. “We can’t let the First Order get this place too,” he added in an undertone.

“Quiet,” Eponine warned as she opened up the cargo compartment. All the same she could not help but cast a glance towards her ship’s hatchway, where she could just see the lush green fields outside the spaceport, now growing dark under the setting sun. ‘ _Must we run even from this?’_ she thought even as she set to work.

As Eponine and Gavroche were bringing up crates from the hold, she heard four taps on her comlink. “Zelma, who told you we got in here already?” Eponine called to her sister, who she now saw at the _Hawkbat’s_ hatchway.

“Feuilly saw you flying in,” Azelma drawled.

“I knew it. I swear he has eyes even in his _lekku.”_

“Nothing gets past a Twi’lek. Anyway he was waiting for the _Katarn,”_ Azelma explained. She tapped her foot uncomfortably. “I saw the boys arguing with the ground crew.”

“The new ground crew,” Eponine corrected. “What’s going on?”

“Some interplanetary arrangement,” Azelma said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Change in management.”

“Good or bad?”

“Does it matter?”

“It does if it keeps us from flying in and out, and supplying your store,” Eponine pointed out. ‘ _And it’s another thing if the First Order isn’t content with buying from the Bakuran factories and lobbying, and have decided to stand garrison here,’_ she thought. The very idea was enough to bring back memories of Kessel, and have Eponine closing her eyes for a moment.

Gavroche gripped her shoulder. “Ponine?”

“I think I may as well take you up on going to the tapcaf later,” Eponine said. Perhaps the conversation would be dangerous but the prospect of food and some liquid courage was too good to pass up. ‘ _Besides it’s not as if you’ll find answers just standing around in your ship,’_ she thought as she helped her siblings move the last of the crates before locking up the ship, and then heading out of the spaceport.

Within an hour the siblings ended up at the _Corusca Bar_ , a small establishment that had become a haven for the spacers and merchants who worked the trade routes surrounding Bakura. It was run by an old timer in the spaceport, a Corellian who went by the name of Mabeuf. Eponine wrinkled her nose at the smell of new floor wax mingling with the odors of spiced liquor and several kinds of beings all crammed in one space. ‘ _Some would call this the smell of business,’_ she thought even as she caught sight of a dark haired human behind the counter. “Busy night there, Marius?”

The bartender nearly dropped the glass he was cleaning but quickly regained his composure. “I didn’t know the _Hawkbat_ was back today, Eponine,” Marius said with a sheepish smile. He saluted to Gavroche and Azelma. “It’s on the house, as usual. Mabeuf’s welcome home gift for you.  

“You don’t have to. We got paid up front,” Eponine said in an undertone. Nevertheless the offer brought a smile to her face; it was just the sort of gallant thing that Marius had always done for her and her siblings.

Azelma elbowed her. “Aw come on. First you turn down that Daremon fellow, and now him? Can’t anyone do anything for you?”

“She’s got a point,” Marius said as he poured two mugs of lum and set them on the counter. He pointed to Gavroche. “Will you still have your usual?”

Gavroche grinned at him. “A Sith Scorcher---lite. My sister won’t have me wobbling home----“ he trailed off before waving to a man wearing a large pair of goggles. “Nice seeing you back, Joly!”

“You too, Gavroche,” Joly called. He gestured to a tall Bothan and a Sullustan seated at a table, next to another young man slumped over and dozing next to several small glasses. “Musichetta, Bossuet and I need another player for sabacc. Grantaire is taking a rest.”

Eponine groaned at this sight. “How long have you guys been here?”

“Just an hour,” the Bothan named Musichetta replied, motioning for Eponine to join them. She enveloped the young pilot in a hug. “Heard what happened at the spaceport?” she asked in an undertone. “Things are getting rough.”

“Who invited the First Order here?” Eponine asked.

Bossuet, the Sullustan, jerked a paw over to where a Twi’lek and a Wookie were talking to another young man. “Feuilly thinks there’s retribution for some misdeed we don’t know about. Bahorel thinks there’s just a fight being picked, but what can you expect from a Wookie? Jehan has another theory.”

“Which would be?” Joly asked. He whistled to the other table. “Why don’t you guys move over here? Grantaire won’t mind!”

The Wookie grinned by way of agreement before picking up the young man he’d been speaking to, and then hauling him over. The Twi’lek on the other hand looked around carefully before following them. “Better safe than sorry,” the Twi’lek explained. “After what happened at the spaceport with the Chief and all----“

Musichetta groaned. “Feuilly, what did Enjolras do now?”

“Argued his way out, as usual,” the human named Jehan chimed in as the Wookie set him back on his feet. “Can’t blame him for knowing Galactic Law---“

The Wookie moaned and shook his head. “Meaning to say that it doesn’t apply out here but who are we to let the First Order have its way?” Feuilly translated.

Azelma gave her friends a troubled look. “What if someone hears?”

“Let them. The fact that the First Order has been watching this system, waiting to snap it up, is the worst kept secret in these parts,” Feuilly said. His brain tails quivered when he saw Marius wiping the glasses more quickly. “Are we scaring you?”

Marius shook his head. “I’m only running out of explanations for blaster holes in the walls.”

Eponine laughed even as she noticed three other young men also entering the tapcaf. She pounded her mug of lum on the table. “You three are late. Pay up.”

“The bet did not extend here, Eponine,” Courfeyrac reminded her as he swung up onto the bar and right next to Marius. Like his friend he had dark hair, but was significantly more rotund in build. “Why so serious?”

“I am at work,” Marius said uneasily. “I heard what happened at the spaceport---“

Combeferre, the broadest of this duo, cleared his throat. “It was only a misunderstanding,” he said. “Apparently we weren’t aware that the Bakuran military has chosen to seek outside help.” He glanced at Enjolras, who was shaking his head. “That is the diplomatic explanation.”

“We all know what it really is though,” Enjolras said seriously. His golden hair made him stand out even in the dimness of the tapcaf, but the hard look in his eyes was enough to deter anyone from making any undue advances out of mere curiosity. “Even the spaceport commandant, Javert, is in on it.”

Azelma shook her head in disgust. “You and your conspiracy theories!” She tapped Marius’ arm. “Another mug of lum---and the next round is on me!”

Eponine rolled her eyes again despite the cheers this announcement elicited from most of the group, even Musichetta. ‘ _If only it were that simple,’_ she thought even as she looked to Enjolras, the only one apart from Grantaire who had remained silent. He made an almost imperceptible gesture towards a corner before muttering something to Combeferre and excusing himself. Eponine waited a minute before slipping past Gavroche and heading into the shadowed nook.

She saw Enjolras looking out the window, hands gripping the sill tightly. It was the way he always was whenever some matter was weighing on him, which seemed to be happening more and more often nowadays. ‘ _Still the fire is there,’_ she thought, remembering how he had first been sceptical of her piloting skills the first time she had stepped into the tapcaf. The last thing she had been looking for was another dangerous pilot, and yet she had found one---and then some.

As quietly as she could she went up to him and slipped her arms around him from behind. “You’re terrible for making me pay up,” she muttered as she squeezed him tightly.

“I’m willing to take that payment in kind,” Enjolras said before turning to face her. He traced the line of her jaw. “Did they also hassle you at the spaceport?”

“They just checked my papers,” Eponine explained even as her hands began making short work of the fastenings of his jacket. It was dangerous, even scandalous to meet him like this, but it was impossible to steal away entirely from the company of their little band of family and friends. She grinned when she felt his hands at the hem of her shirt. “What did you do to them?”

“Argue my way out, ask for their permits to search my ship,” Enjolras said in a low voice. “Thankfully Combeferre took precautions when stowing things in the hold----“

“Oh so you did tie your crates down after all?”

“I’m a careful courier, Eponine.”

This retort had her laughing as she drew him down for a kiss. Somehow she could never resist riling him up this way, and he _always_ took the bait. Eponine bit back a sigh of pleasure when she felt his hand pull her close against his body, while his lips let go of hers just so he could plant a heated kiss on her neck. She stood on tiptoe to kiss him back, when all of a sudden she heard what sounded like screeching overhead followed by a terrible crash. “Something went down---“ she whispered, pulling away from Enjolras.

The young man darted towards the nearby window. “A transport of some sort.” He turned to see Marius running up to the corner. “What’s wrong?”

“That was an emergency landing,” Marius said. “And it looks ugly out there. We need blasters, Chief.”

Enjolras quickly left the corner while Eponine fumbled at her belt for the small hold out blaster she kept there. Now certain that the weapon was in her hand, she went to the window to take a look at the now burning transport that had landed just outside the spaceport.  ‘ _It cannot be----‘_ she thought with disbelief as she saw the glow of a yellow lightsaber suddenly light up the night.


	5. Chapter 5

 

**LIBERATION FLIGHT**

_Chapter 5:On Reinforcements and Hideaways_

“ _Are you sure you don’t want us to accompany you? You can’t keep on hitchhiking your way across the galaxy, Cosette.”_

_“Thanks for the offer, but we can’t all go, not all at once. General Organa needs you and Finn on hand too, till Rey gets back from her mission.”_

Now, with the transport ship rattling to pieces as it went down through Bakura’s atmosphere, Cosette found herself wishing she had just asked Poe and Finn to accompany her in this investigation of the First Order’s forays into an Outer Rim trade corridor. ‘ _We wouldn’t have attracted attention, not like this!’_ she thought as another bolt of laser fire rocked the ship, making more of its beleaguered passengers scream while the captain tried to stay in control of the failing spacecraft. Then again, it was only to be expected that in the light of recent events, the First Order forces in the system would not hesitate to fire on any starship, even a civilian one. ‘ _Then again, with Snoke now on the warpath, this was long in coming,’_ she told herself as she heard an alarm screech.

“Brace yourselves! We’re making an emergency landing!” the pilot shouted over the rising din. “Everyone---“

His next words were drowned out by a scream, but Cosette lost no time in helping secure a couple of youngsters who had resorted to crying while clinging to their equally terrified parents. She had only a moment to brace herself against a bulkhead as the ship dropped sharply before bouncing against the ground and then coming to a jerky stop. Thick black smoke quickly filled the passenger compartment, even as blaster bolts cut through the darkness outside.

A woman clutched at Cosette’s hand. “We’ll be captured! What are we going to do?”

“We have to run,” Cosette said, taking a shallow breath before she leapt past some wounded passengers towards the twisted door of the ship. She focused on a weak point she found in the doorway, giving it the slightest of pushes so that the metal would give just enough to create an aperture. ‘ _Wouldn’t do to blow cover this early,’_ she thought as she leapt out in order to help some of he passengers out.

Yet as soon as her feet hit the ground, she already could see a patrol of First Order stormtroopers approaching on a skiff, and already preparing to fire at the crippled ship. She immediately grabbed the lightsaber at her belt and powered it up, just in time to ward off the first blaster bolt that lit up the gloom.  “Go!” she shouted to the other passengers who were crowding around the escape route she had created. In the yellow glow of her weapon she could see three more people rushing through the haze of smoke and ozone to this scene, but firing instead on the patrol’s vehicle. Taking advantage of this covering fire, Cosette rushed back to her fellow passengers, warding off what blaster bolts still endangered their transport. “Go round the wreckage and make for the spaceport,” she told the co-pilot, who stood at the head of this group. “There will surely be help at that place.”

This shaken man nodded slowly. “And what about you, Miss....”

“I’ll follow,” Cosette said as she turned off her lightsaber.  ‘ _Just not sure when, or how,’_ she thought even as she rushed back into the fray. By this time the newcomers had already successfully crippled the First Order troops’ transport, and taken out the stormtroopers. Cosette took a step forward, sensing that they did not intend any harm to her. She paused as an odd feeling washed over her, of familiarity mingled with surprise. ‘ _Which could only come from one person,’_ she thought even as she caught the gaze of the one woman in this trio. “Ponine!”

The redheaded woman nearly dropped her holdout blaster. “What are you doing here, Cosette?”

“Very long story,” Cosette replied, now smiling widely with relief on seeing her friend.

“Obviously! I mean you, a Jedi----“ Eponine hissed.

One of Eponine’s companions, a tall young man with golden hair, signed for her to be quiet even as he turned off his own comlink. “Combeferre and Joly will meet the other passengers. Some of them may need medical attention,” he said in an undertone.

Eponine nudged him with her elbow. “Back to business as always, Enjolras? I haven’t made any introductions yet.”

Enjolras shrugged before nodding to his other companion, a slender dark-haired man who was now standing around with an incredulous expression. “Marius, are you well?”

The man named Marius blushed before shaking himself. “I’m fine,” he stammered. He swallowed hard as he looked at Cosette. “It was brave of you to cover them.”

“I wasn’t about to just run off,” Cosette said amiably. There was something about Marius’ affable, even rather blustering manner that lightened her spirits considerably, especially in the aftermath of such a near escape. It was all she could do not to laugh when Marius reddened again when he glanced at her as they hurried in the general direction of a spaceport. “Is there something wrong?”  

“It’s just that all these things are unusual,” Marius replied more easily. “The First Order normally does not trouble this planet.”

“They are after the repulsorlift businesses,” Enjolras deadpanned. “What is unusual is this raid. Where do your fellow passengers come from?” he asked, directing this query to Cosette.

“Everywhere. We flew out from Folor,” Cosette replied. That particular spaceport was a huge crossroads, with all kinds of ships flying out to nearly every point within the Republic. She paused on seeing that Enjolras and Marius were carrying heavy blaster rifles with them. “Are you with the local police force?”

Enjolras looked at her for a moment. “No. Does this trouble you?”

“It’s a legitimate question,” Eponine retorted as she clasped his arm. “I’m pretty sure that this, and all the searches at the spaceport are related.”

“You have a story too, Ponine,” Cosette said lightly. ‘ _Bakura doesn’t have need for a resistance cell, so perhaps they feel their authorities have betrayed them,’_ she realized as they entered the spaceport only to find more pilots similarly armed with various weapons. In a corner was what appeared to be a sort of tapcaf that had now been converted into a medical station for the rescued passengers. Two young men, apparently medics of some sort, moved in the middle of this confusion, attending to the wounded. A Twi’lek and a Wookie were working to calm an agitated group of patients. In a corner two other young men were arguing with a burly gentleman dressed in scarlet, but with a designation marking him as the spaceport’s superintendent.

Marius shook his head. “That cannot be good if not even Courfeyrac and Jehan cannot reason with Javert,” he commented.

Enjolras gritted his teeth. “He is the one who owes an explanation.” He nodded to Marius and the ladies. “Excuse me for a moment.”

Marius glanced at Enjolras as he walked off, then back at Eponine. “Aren’t you going with him?”

“Not till she tells us exactly what is going on first,” Eponine said as she pulled Cosette aside and shooed Marius off. Her eyes were dark with confusion and a new sort of wariness as she regarded the other girl. “If you’re here, that means the Resistance is getting involved,” she said bluntly.

“Yes, but it’s just to check whether it’s true that the First Order has been moving in this part of the galaxy,” Cosette replied. “It’s not a military strike.”

Eponine made a scoffing noise. “That’s why I don’t see Dameron anywhere?”

“The General has him and Finn on another mission,” Cosette informed her. “For now,” she added, seeing Eponine’s disbelieving look.

“So Finn actually got use of his legs again?”

“He’s getting better. I am not sure how he and Poe work it out but they team up a lot.”

“Of course,” Eponine said knowingly. She gestured to Cosette’s lightsaber. “If you have that, I guess then that Rey found Luke Skywalker after all.”

“She did,” Cosette said proudly. It had taken a few weeks till she had suddenly gotten a message from Rey, asking her and Jean Valjean to come to the ancient Jedi temple. Ever since then she and Rey had been training together, up until summons suddenly came from General Organa, asking for all of them to return to D’Qar. ‘ _She got her brother back, Master Valjean had a flight to command, while Rey and I have a Sith to find,’_ she thought.

Eponine chewed the inside of her cheek for a moment. “We may have gotten all the stormtroopers, but I’m sure there’s still someone who’ll report back with a tale of a Jedi Knight in the area. If that doesn’t bring Kylo Ren here, I don’t know what will,” she muttered.

‘ _That is if he’s not already here,’_ Cosette thought, but she knew better than to voice this out. After all, for all she knew, Rey might have already caught up with the renegade first. Before she could say anything to this, a red burst of light shot through the spaceport. “Everyone take cover!” someone shouted.

“Right this way!” Marius called as he hurried back towards Eponine and Cosette. “Get into the tapcaf!”

“Are you crazy? We’ll be cornered!” a woman shouted.

“We won’t,” Enjolras cut in firmly as he helped lead some more of the crowd into the barroom. Marius sprinted ahead and tapped a button on the underside of the bar. “Here,” he said.

Cosette gaped at the trick floor that opened up a few feet away. “A storeroom?”

“A hideaway,” Marius replied. He awkwardly held out a hand to her. “Need help?”

Cosette did not need any sort of inkling from the Force to prompt her to take his hand and leap with him into the cellar.


	6. Chapter 6

**LIBERATION FLIGHT**

_Chapter 6: On Living Legends_

Marius had learned a great deal in the four years since he’d left his grandfather’s home on Coruscant. There had been a time when he would have run away from the mere sight of First Order troopers, but now his hands knew something of building smugglers’ hideaways and holding a blaster steady in the midst of a firefight. ‘ _Seeing actual legends are another story though,’_ he told himself as he tried to squeeze in some elbow room in that tightly packed room beneath the tapcaf. He figured there had to be at least thirty persons of various races all crammed in this tiny space, and as extraordinary as many of them were, none of them were as mind-boggling as the blonde warrior who’d slipped in beside him.

‘ _I thought you were a legend,’_ he mused, only to feel heat rush to his face when he realized he’s voiced that thought, and thus drawn Cosette’s attention.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to----“ he stammered.

“It’s fine,” Cosette said calmly. She stood on tiptoe and looked around. “It’s unusual to have a shelter like this under a spaceport, let alone a tapcaf,” she remarked.

“It was meant to be for storage,” Marius said, yet even so he could remember what Mabeuf had said on the day they had fitted out this space. ‘ _You never know what other good this may be for.’_ Yet even so, Marius was pretty sure that this ‘good’ did not necessarily entail dodging blaster fire. “Anyone who tries to open the trapdoor with the wrong code or by force will only find a ferrocete panel.”

“In short, flooring,” Cosette said, a hint of mischief creeping over her face. She took a half step to the side in order to give a rather large Rodian some room to move about, but this only pressed her up right against Marius’ chest. The contact nearly made Marius’ breath catch up until once again he met her eyes.  “Till fairly recently I thought that the Jedi were a legend as well,” she confided.

Marius’ jaw dropped. “But you are----“

“I haven’t spent my whole life as a Jedi.”

“Aren’t they supposed to be _old_?”

Cosette laughed and shook her head. “Maybe you mean the Jedi Masters---the mentors and teachers. Luke Skywalker in particular. He’s definitely not just a legend.”

“Of course not. Then that would make General Organa a legend too,” Marius blurted out.

A hand suddenly clasped his shoulder. “Who is this I’m missing?” Courfeyrac greeted jovially. “Marius, is this really you, talking to such a lovely lady?”

“I had to help her hide here too,” Marius said in an undertone. He took a step back to eye both his friend and the young lady. “Courfeyrac, meet Cosette. She’s the one who helped cover the passengers on that crashed transport. Cosette, my friend Courfeyrac.”

Courfeyrac grinned at Cosette. “I have not met a more charming face in the galaxy.” He thumped Marius’ back. “You’ve been holding out on us!”

“She’s Eponine’s friend,” Marius pointed out, glancing at the redheaded pilot who was talking to her siblings in a corner. He looked to Cosette and felt heartened when she nodded almost imperceptibly as if by way of confirmation. “We only just met,” he added, more for Courfeyrac’s benefit.

Courfeyrac laughed and thumped Marius’ back. “A story to tell your children?”

This was enough to have heat rushing to Marius’ face. “Courfeyrac, must you?” he muttered. “We’re in hiding and that’s all you can talk about?”

“Not like we can do much else till they clear out,” Feuilly chimed in. “The question is, what is the First Order here for?”

“To seize the spaceport and maybe the repulsorlift factories, obviously,” a scarred Shivastenen growled. “Why else would they be in Bakura?”

“It would be easier for them to force a deal with the government to provide parts, if that is what they want,” Combeferre commented. “It is more than that. This is war.”  

Cosette swallowed hard before looking to where Eponine was talking to Enjolras. “So them----“

“Don’t ask. Let’s just say they get along,” Courfeyrac quipped. “That’s what comes from placing bets all the time as to who the fastest flier is.”

“Well where Eponine is concerned, some things never change,” Cosette quipped.

Enjolras motioned for everyone to remain silent before he nodded to Bahorel. “You’re closest to the vent. What do you hear?” he asked.

The Wookie made a grunting sound before standing close to the vent. After a few moments he shook his head and growled disappointedly.

Enjolras gritted his teeth at this. “The strafing run is done, but it would appear they have left sentries above us,” he said in an undertone.”They shorted out the exit by firing on it.”

“How is that possible?” Mabeuf asked, going over to the controls near the trapdoor. He punched at them a few times, to no avail, before stepping aside to let Combeferre attempt to hotwire the panel. “Any luck?”

The medic shook his head. “We can’t be found down here. These panels dissipate heat signatures that most life forms give out,” he said, pointing to the thick dark walls of this bunker.

“The same material for tombs, which is rather fitting,” Grantaire chimed in. The drunkard tottered to his feet and wiped some saliva off his cheeks. “There is no way we can make an escape route for ourselves. We are buried alive.”

“Quiet down!” Enjolras snapped. He looked keenly at an old man who was watching the ceiling warily. “Mabeuf, is there a way?”

The tapcaf’s proprietor shook his head. “When Marius and I designed this, it was meant for secrecy, so we made it more or less hermetically sealed,” he announced. “We can wait for the sentries to leave....”

“There isn’t enough air for _three dozen_ people!” Joly hissed. “We need to at least cut another air hole—“

‘ _Not with these walls,’_ Marius thought. “It would take an extraordinary sort of blade----“ he began before he saw Cosette stand on her tiptoes again, as if listening for something. At length she went to a far corner of the cramped room and pressed her hand to a panel. Suddenly a brilliant yellow-white glow filled the air as Cosette quickly cut through a join in the wall panels and then through the ferrocete covering it. “Quiet now,” she whispered.

Marius only had a moment to gape at her before he followed the rest of the group out this makeshift exit, only to emerge at the far end of the tapcaf, away from the bar. ‘ _How did she know where to cut our way out?’_ he wondered only a moment before he heard someone flick off the safety switch of a blaster.

“Blasters down and hands up!” a stormtrooper barked, training a rifle into the doorway. “You are not authorized to carry weapons in this spaceport.”

Enjolras’ eyes narrowed haughtily at the stormtrooper. “This is a spaceport of the government of Bakura.” He took a step forward. “The First Order has no authority here.”

The stormtrooper hesitated, but did not lower his weapon. “Surrender your weapons or we will be forced to confiscate them.”

Out of the corner of his eye Marius saw Gavroche press a tiny button on his belt, and a moment later a whirring sound came from the far end of the hangar before the entire hangar was filled by a cloud of smoke. The stormtrooper went for his comlink, but that was enough for Enjolras to snatch a blaster and deal the stormtrooper a shot to the chest.

“What’s happening?” Azelma shouted.

“I got BD-3 to do something!” Gavroche yelled as he took her hand. “Let’s go!”

Marius saw Mabeuf grab a staff, but he immediately seized the old man’s hand to pull him along. Through the haze it was difficult to see where anyone was going; all that was necessary was to put as much distance between them and the spaceport as possible. ‘ _Weren’t we supposed to be safe, here in Bakura?’_ he wondered as he and his friend ran further and further into the streets, till at last Marius felt Mabeuf begin to totter. He grabbed the old man and propped him up against a post, even as he looked up and down the street for any sign of their would-be assailants. “Will you be fine?” he asked.

Mabeuf wheezed before managing a nod. “That girl. Where is she?”

The question brought to Marius’ mind a vision of golden hair and blue eyes. “I didn’t see her?”

Mabeuf winced. “I know what she is. She’s tough but she’s going to be on the run. She needs more friends than just those Thenardier kids.”

The younger man nodded before looking around once more and then pulling out his comlink to key in first Eponine, then Azelma and Gavroche. Unsurprisingly the three of them did not reply. He sighed before keying in Courfeyrac’s comlink code. “Courfeyrac? Where are you?” he asked in a whisper.

“Was about to ask the same thing myself!” Courfeyrac hissed. “Where are you and Mabeuf?”

“Someplace safe.” It was all that Marius could dare to say sincethere was no telling now if there were spies in the street. “You?”

“The usual place,” Courfeyrac said. “Thanks for calling in.”

“Wait, Courf, have you seen her? Cosette?” Marius asked.

“I thought she was with you?”

“No, I got Mabeuf out but I didn’t see her following.”

Courfeyrac hissed audibly. “The Thenardiers are here, of course. She’s not with them.”

Marius gritted his teeth even as he saw a slender figure sprinting past an alley. He took a step forward and held out a hand. “Are you there?”

This was enough to stop Cosette in her tracks. “Marius!” She ran to him and clasped his arms. “We thought we lost you in the firefight!”

“Who’s we?” Marius asked incredulously.

“Your Bothan friend, Musichetta, and that young man and the Sullustan----“

“Musichetta, Joly, and Bossuet?”

Cosette nodded quickly before looking to Mabeuf. “They didn’t hurt you?”

“I’m perfectly well, young lady,” Mabeuf said, managing a cordial bow. “What is the proper way to address a Jedi Knight?”

“Everyone simply calls me Cosette,” she replied with a smile. She took a deep breath, clearly in an effort to collect herself. “Do you have any equipment to send an off-planet transmission? I need to report back to the Resistance,” she said.

“The ships,” Mabeuf suggested. “But they would be locked down by bow, and we cannot return to the spaceport.”

‘ _I know just the place,’_ Marius tells himself. “Follow me,” he instructed Cosette and Mabeuf. As they hurried down the street he suddenly felt the brush of warm fingers against his. When he looked at Cosette he caught the faintest hint of pink darkening her fair cheeks. “What did you see?”

“It’s a complicated situation,” she said. “This is a peaceful planet. It’s about to be drawn into war, in precisely the way I had hoped for otherwise. It’s more than the repulsorlift business.”

These words sent a chill down Marius’ spine, more so when he looked at Cosette. She was even younger than he was, but her very mien spoke of having lived through worse tribulations than this. “What will you do?”

“Something, once we have help,” she replied. “A Jedi cannot fight a war for a _whole_ planet.”

‘ _Has it gotten to that proportion?’_ he wondered, but then again he was not about to ask about her judgment, not in such a time. He slowed his pace to fall in step with her. “Are you a pilot too?”

Cosette laughed ruefully and shook her head. “I never had the head for it. In all the old stories, the Jedi can fly anything. I must be among the few---or now the only one---who can’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“I used to nearly crash everything that Eponine and I would get behind. After a while we figured it was best she’d take the controls and I navigate.”

Marius chuckled, imagining both Cosette and Eponine as young girls fighting about a simulation. “You go back a long way?”

“We were children together,” Cosette explained. “Even before Gavroche was born.”

This mention of long years had Marius whistling, but he fell silent as soon as they came in sight of a winding staircase leading up to an apartment. He noticed someone sitting on a landing. “Courfeyrac!”

“Right on time. Everyone else is here,” Courfeyrac greeted, his tone one of relief as he rushed down to them. He shook Mabeuf’s hand before making a low bow to Cosette. “We are graced by your presence.”

Marius shook his head embarrassedly at this obvious show of gushing. “Who is here?”

“As I said, everyone. You’d better come on up,” Courfeyrac said with a wave of his hand. “There’s news out that especially _she_ ought to see.”


	7. Chapter 7

**LIBERATION FLIGHT**

_Chapter 7: Friendly Forces_

_Control._ Even now Rey could hear Luke Skywalker’s steady admonition in her mind, reminding her to keep at bay the emotions that sometimes threatened to cloud her thinking. ‘ _It’s not just anger or fear, but also concern,’_ she told herself as she sat back in the pilot’s seat of the small craft she’d borrowed for this leg of her mission. Even though she’d set the tiny corvette to autopilot, she still preferred being within reach of the controls.

The young woman fished a hologram chip out of her pocket and projected images onto the ceiling. “I should ask BB-8 to get more of these for me soon,” she whispered as she watched a clip of Finn and Poe visiting a new planet, followed by footage of Jean Valjean and Luke Skywalker exploring the old Jedi Temple, and lastly a picture of General Organa and Chewbacca aboard the _Millennium Falcon_. ‘ _I wonder what Cosette is up to. The last time I saw her was at Commenor,’_ Rey reflected. She could certainly feel that her friend was more or less safe; to her Cosette was a bright spot in her consciousness, steadier than even the sun over Jakku. It was rare that she felt any sort of disturbance concerning her fellow Jedi in training.

Yet it was at that moment that Rey heard a beep coming from her ship’s long distance comm unit. “Hello there, what have you got?” she asked aloud as she pressed the button to view the message. She frowned on seeing the coordinates pointing to the planet Bakura, nearly halfway across the galaxy. The former scavenger sat up straight on seeing the familiar face of Cosette flicker onto the screen. “What are you doing there?” Rey whispered as she adjusted the controls to sharpen the image.

Cosette’s face was calm, albeit streaked with soot, in the holo-clip. “ _Hello Rey. I don’t know how soon this will get to you and the Resistance; I’m only tagging this to your tracking beacon and to the base. Anyway you might have seen by now that I’m at Bakura, near Endor. The First Order has just arrived here, and they have invaded the capital’s spaceport. I do not have word if they have already reached the government and forced it to give up control of the system. But I’m telling you because Kylo Ren is here. His Knights seem to be absent, and the same with Snoke. But you and I have our orders. Please come as soon as you can. See you soon, Rey! And please stay safe!”_

Rey shut her eyes as she closed the message. ‘ _Ever since that day on the Starkiller, he and Snoke been calling to me too,’_ she thought. It was because, she decided, that she had the courage to face down Kylo Ren even if it had nearly cost her and Finn their lives. She knew that Cosette felt the same pull too, but perhaps not as greatly. ‘ _Who else is out there?’_ she wondered. It was at times like these that she missed talking to Finn in particular; the pull on him was different but real nonetheless.

It was why she’d been spending her time tracking him all over the galaxy. ‘ _This has to stop. He’s being pulled in as much as we all are, but he’s fallen and he has to get up again,’_ she told herself. Then of course there was General Organa’s order—or rather, plea to her and Cosette.

‘ _You both can understand my son,’  the grim matron had said, stopping with her pacing. She glanced towards where Luke and Valjean were still talking. ‘You’ll be the next to face him. Not them.’_

_“What should we do then?’ Cosette asked._

_General Organa’s eyes glistened for a moment but soon the steel was back in her dark gaze. ‘Bring my son back. Alive.’_

Rey took a moment to consult her star map before going over to the ship’s holonet unit. “Hello boys. I’m headed to Bakura. We’re all needed there. Don’t take the trade corridor; there are sure to be First Order forces waiting,” she instructed. Rey shut her eyes to gather herself even as she palmed the lightsaber hanging from her belt. Everything was happening sooner than she had hoped for. ‘ _You made your choice when you left Jakku,’_ she thought as she took the ship off auto-pilot and keyed in a new set of coordinates for her route. She sat back after this, hoping for only one thing: to still arrive in time to stop impending disaster.  


	8. Chapter 8

**LIBERATION FLIGHT**

_Chapter 8: Standing One’s Ground_

“ _There is no mistaking it. Kylo Ren is here.”_

It only took Cosette’s confirmation upon seeing the holocam footage at the hangar for Enjolras to immediately begin making plans and asking everyone present about what armaments they had to defend the spaceport and the city from the First Order incursion. ‘ _Is that all we are dealing with?’_ Combeferre could not help but wonder even as he reviewed the holograms over and over again in an attempt to see if the infamous Kylo Ren had any other accomplices with him. ‘ _Perhaps his Knights are only a legend....’_

However, any thoughts along those lines were dispelled when he looked to where Cosette was chatting with Marius, who had been showing her how to work the safehouse’s long distance comm unit. ‘ _But if she is here---and she has friends---then the rumors are true. The Jedi have returned,’_ he mused quietly. Now _that_ was truly the stuff of legends; as far as he knew the Jedi were supposed to have been eliminated twice over in the recent years. Yet what, or who, was this newcomer in their midst?

In the meantime Enjolras looked up from where he and Eponine were cleaning several blasters. “Marius, did you and Mabeuf leave any other materials back at the tapcaf?” he asked, his normally clear voice taking on a terse note.

“We don’t bring an inventory with us everywhere,” Marius replied. He sighed on seeing Mabeuf sign to him. “It will only be a while,” he said apologetically to Cosette before ducking into a corner where Mabeuf was getting pulled into a discussion with Jehan and Musichetta.

Combeferre looked to where Cosette was unclipping a shiny item from her belt. “Now that is definitely not a legend,” he murmured, only to have the young woman suddenly look in his direction. “I apologize. That was untoward,” he said quickly.

Cosette smiled at him amiably. “You know what this is,” she said, indicating her lightsaber.

Combeferre managed a slight nod. “I heard that those weapons were passed down from one family member to another,” he remarked. “Were there really so many?”

“Once,” Cosette corrected as she powered up the lgihtsaber, bathing the vicinity in a yellow light that seemed to crackle when the young woman moved the weapon about. “In another day and age, each Jedi had to make his or her own.”

“Whatever happened to your mother’s lightsaber?” Eponine chimed in. “Lost it?”

“Not exactly,” Cosette said lightly, even as her cheeks turned slightly pink. “Rey and I were practicing once, when my mother’s lightsbaer shorted out. I simply retrieved the crystal that had been in there, and combined it in a new one to make my own weapon.”

Eponine blinked confusedly. “Crystal?”

“It’s what makes the blade,” Cosette explained. “My mother used a krayt dragon pearl, actually. I don’t know how she got it.”

‘ _Probably slew one herself,’_ Combeferre realized, feeling a frisson of admiration. “She must have been quite a warrior.”

“So I heard,” Cosette said softly, even as her gaze seemed to focus on something far off. She looked down at her lightsaber again after a moment. “In a way, it’s like having her with me. It’s not what turns the blade yellow though.”

“What might that be?” Eponine asked.

“Another crystal of my own choosing,” Cosette replied with a brighter smile. “I am sorry if I am boring you with all this talk...”

“I’m curious what _Rey_ chose for her lightsaber,” Eponine said.

“Who’s Rey?” Enjolras asked.

“A friend, also like her,” Eponine said, jerking her thumb in Cosette’s direction. “That’s the uncanny one. The one who was born to be a Jedi Knight.”

“Ponine, will you quiet down?” Azelma rebuked her. “You’ll call the First Order on us---“

“She already did by turning on her lightsaber,” Enjolras cut in grimly. He gave Cosette a pointed look. “It is you that Kylo Ren wants. Or are you seeking him?”

“I did not know he was here, not till I saw the holocam,” Cosette pointed out. “All I was asked to do was to investigate the First Order’s here.”

“Now it seems that it might go the other way around,” Enjolras replied. His jaw was set as he looked at the group gathered with him. “This may mean war.”

‘ _Which we are not ready for,’_ Combeferre could not help but think. For a moment his vision went red even as bolts of blaster fire rose before his eyes. He suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder and he blinked, only to meet Enjolras’ blue gaze. “I’m fine,” he said.

“You went pale. Are you sure you are not coming over wobbly again?” Courfeyrac asked.

Combeferre shook his head. “Not this time.” Still there was no shooing away that feeling he felt in his spine; he had it when he and his friends were trying to land the _Katarn_ earlier in the day. ‘ _As if something is coming----‘_

All of a sudden Cosette unclipped her lightsaber from her belt and motioned for everyone to stay away from the door. “Quiet now.”

“What---“ Enjolras began before the first heavy knock sounded on the door. He snatched up a blaster rifle and turned off its safety lock. “The rest of you, out the back door. Marius, go with them.”

Combeferre did not even need to be told to get a blaster of his own. He could hear now the footsteps gathering outside the door. “Stay calm.”

Bahorel let out a disgruntled groan that had Joly slapping his back. “Chief, what are we going to do?”

Enjolras gritted his teeth. “Stand our ground.”

A harsher knock sounded on the door. “Who goes there?” a voice crackled.

“The Resistance!” Mabeuf suddenly shouted before rushing forward.


End file.
